What's the Problem, Anyway?
I watched a Congressional hearing so you don't have to
I have a confession: I watched three hours of C-SPAN this week.
I wasn’t planning to do this. But when I heard that Congress was going to try to make sense of “name, image and likeness” (NIL) deals in college athletics, I had to see it for myself.1
So on Tuesday I scrolled to the depths of my YouTube TV guide, past the portion inhabited by UFO documentaries, cake shows and Guy Fieri, and there it was: the “Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Compensating College Athletes” presented by C-SPAN.
As a service to my readers, I will share what I learned.
(All quotes below are real, but the names and party affiliations of the speakers have been removed to protect the guilty.)
I have to admit, going in I expected this hearing to be tedious, pointless and boring, and it turned out it was.
It was the usual setting: Senators sitting at desks in an elevated semicircle, guests crammed at a table in the center of the room, staffers scribbling notes in the background pretending to look useful. Just like in the movies.
As the hearing unfolded it became clear that there were no prerequisites for speaking other than an invitation and a microphone. An understanding of the issues was not required.
The Problem: The Problem
The participants hastily agreed at the outset that NIL deals have ushered in a troubling new era in college sports that needs to be fixed. The words “chaos” and “broken” were tossed around repeatedly, and “wild west” won Phrase of the Day honors.
Senators took turns warning us that “the system is in need of reform…NOW” and that “if this committee does not act within a year, you will destroy college athletics as you know it.”2
With those bold statements the purpose of the hearing was established. There was no explanation or rebuttal, just a somber nodding of heads.
But during the three-hour parade of opening remarks, closing statements, anecdotes and Very Good Questions, one thing became very clear:
There is no agreement at all over what The Problem actually is.
That little detail would not get in the way, however. There was a hearing to hold and the C-SPAN audience was waiting.
And so the marathon began even though none of the runners had agreed on the finish line.
Three different versions of The Problem emerged during the hearing.
The Problem: Student Athletes Need More Protection.
The first Senator identified The Problem as he saw it: we need to jump in and protect the players against things like predatory agents and bad NIL contracts. It was also suggested that we implement stricter health and safety regulations and tuition guarantees, maybe even a medical trust fund.
I admit that they had me sucked in at this point! I felt a swell of optimism — they were discussing actual ideas and possible solutions. I even learned about heat stroke (you don’t want that). So far so good.
The Problem: Student-Athletes Should Be Amateurs.
Well, so much for that.
Just 10 minutes in, right on the heels of the message about protecting student-athletes, the next Senator announced that “we want it still to be an amateur sport to the best we can.”
He pointed out that every player on Utah’s football team receives a brand new truck. His very own truck! He used this is an example of the “chaos” that needs to be eradicated from college athletics.
It wasn’t just him, though. Another Senator said the quiet part even more loudly: “If it’s all about chasing the dollars, that’s not what it’s designed to be. It’s kinda hard to root for the kids when they’re multi-millionaires as freshmen and sophomores.”
These two seemed to hold their truth as self-evident, apparently unaware that the Supreme Court decreed in its pesky NCAA v. Alston decision that the amateurism model is EXTREMELY ILLEGAL, and trying to limit players’ income because you find it “kinda hard to root for” is outdated and mean. Points for honesty though, I guess.
(A university official jumped in to add that part of the value of college sports is that the players are just students after all, with the “same rights and privileges of any other student, admitted under the same standards and educated under the same standards.” It was a much needed moment of comic relief.)
The Problem: Inequitable Treatment.
Another Senator made the point that if athletes are allowed to make money, some will make less than others, and that doesn’t feel right. She noted that football and basketball players have brought in the lion’s share of NIL deals, which for one thing creates a gender disparity.
Someone else pointed out that the biggest NIL earner has been the famously female LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne, and that minority athletes seem to have benefited from NIL deals more than white athletes.
OK, we’re back on track! Another healthy discussion. The free market seems to be creating inequities. What should we do about that? Are non-Olivia Dunne female athletes being left behind? How does Title 9 fit in to all this? Do white basketball players need a voice? We were finally getting somewhere.
But then the other Senator chimed in about the Utah trucks again (he really hates those trucks) and we drifted off course for a moment. Our time on this topic then came to an abrupt end because it was time to move on to our bonus version of The Problem…
SPECIAL BONUS - The Problem: Locker Rooms?
Look, I don’t make the news, I just report it, but three Senators found it extremely important to discuss nudity in locker rooms, in particular as it relates to transgender athletes. Now I’m not saying this isn’t an important and nuanced issue to sort out, but…time and place? It’s like they saw “college sports” on the sign in the hallway and busted in to give speeches about locker room nakedness.
One of them in particular talked about it a whole lot during a half hour period. He repeated himself and demanded apologies and generally injected his nakedness tangents into other discussions. I would not want to be this guy’s barber.
The most lucid moment of the day was tucked into one Senator’s comments during the sleepy middle portion of the hearing.
He made the observation that the world only started wringing its hands and holding hearings once the athletes started sharing in college sports’ $16 billion bag of money. As he put it, “the kids started getting paid and all hell broke loose.”
He pointed out that as far as the fat cats of college sports were concerned, “before the Alston case, everything was just fine.”
He had nailed it. For years coaches made millions and conferences made billions and nobody batted an eye; now the players make a few thousand dollars selling Runzas and we have to literally hold Congressional hearings to figure out how that should work.
But the moment passed and the hearing’s focus turned back to other things. After all there were trucks and locker rooms to discuss, and we were running out of time.
I promise this column won’t focus on NIL and/or the NCAA every week, but lately they’re giving me no choice.
There was some discussion of who should be responsible for fixing all this (the NCAA, Congress, maybe a new group that hasn’t been invented yet). You may not believe this but Congress seemed to believe that Congress should handle it.
Thank God they don’t have anything more pressing to deal with.
Some of these Senators are crying out loud for some lobbyists to give them a cut